Kelly looking for “shutoutability” in his defensive coordinator

New Eagles coach Chip Kelly knows he’s going to have to change some things, but he has a very distinct requirement for his defensive coordinator.

Speaking to reporters at Senior Bowl practices, Kelly said his main criteria for determining his next coordinator isn’t a 3-4 or a 4-3 style, but “shutoutability.”

While making up words on the fly shows a certain agility of the mind, Kelly said he doesn’t necessarily need people to think the same way.

“You need really, really, smart people. People who are dedicated,” Kelly said, via Les Bowen of the Philadelphia Daily News. “You need people who are just a little bit ‘off’ too.”

Kelly also said as he wraps his mind around a 53-man roster (instead of the hundreds he had at Oregon), he’ll have to adjust things as basic as his practice routine.

“The Eagles are not a cross-country team” he said.

While parts of the staff has been hired, it hasn’t been announced. Thus, defensive line coach Jerry Azzinaro is walking around wearing an Eagles nametag, but because there hasn’t been a press release, wouldn’t comment on his status.

“I’m not worried about who we don’t get, I’m worried about who we do get,” Kelly said. “I wanna make sure that that person is the right fit, because I don’t wanna be like, ‘God, I wish I’d spent a little more time and investigated this.’ I’ve been pretty thorough, unless it’s somebody that I’ve either coached with or had a real good working knowledge of.

Everybody seems to already think Chip Kelly will be a failure as a head coach some like Heath Evans called him the worst head coaching hire ever. All of this commentary has come before the man has even coached a game in the NFL.

All I know is that if you want to be a winner you need to take some risks. Chip Kelly is a brilliant offensive mind and has the smarts to surround himself with a great staff. He has plenty of talent to work with on offense already and if nothing else he’s going to be very motivated to prove his style will work in the NFL.

I never thought i’d see the pistol and read option succeed at the NFL level but Colin Kaepernick is starting in Super Bowl 47 running an offense that most viewed as a collegiate gimmick lets just give Chip Kelly some time.

Shutoutability? Not practical. You can have a 3 and out inside your 5 yard line and then a team would only have to march 15-20 yards to get into FG range. Too much pressure on a D Coordinator. I would not want to be that cat’s D coordinator.

Wow, Chip just realized NFL players aren’t going to run cross-country in practices? This guy has absolutely no clue as to how to motivate adults who in many cases make more than he does. They aren’t going to do 9 pm curfews and sleep in dorms either. This guy is totally out of his depth. Let the disaster commence.